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Wednesday, 12 November 2014

Golden Quince Almond Tart

I've pretty much always passed quinces by whenever I've seen them at farmers markets. On rare occasions, I would sometimes pick, admire and sniff them, but never bring back one home . The only thing that ever came to mind to do with them was Quince Cheese, but it wasn't something that I really wanted to make, so they were often dismissed.

This time round I changed my mind when I saw them at a local food festival. I decided to pick up a couple, they were not particularly cheap so I consider these quinces to be a bit of a luxury but that didn't influence me to cook or bake with them any quicker. The quinces sat first for two weeks in my fruit basket, then got moved to the fridge. As I did not wish for them to end up in the compost bin, I started considering making Johanna's Buttery Quince and Almond Cake, but then got distracted thinking maybe I should do a savoury dish with them as there were loads of sweet Quince recipes around.

Well after being in my home for nearly three weeks, at the weekend, I gave up, peeled, sliced and poached them in a little cinnamon honeyed water for about 30 minutes until they were just soft, but not falling apart. I thought we would just enjoy the poached fragrant pieces with Greek yogurt and honey. We both tried a bit and quite liked it. D said it tasted a bit between pear and peach and that is when I became motivated to cook with them further and make a sweet tart.

I am sharing this with Elizabeth's Kitchen Diary for Shop Local Challenge as the quinces came from a local food festival and also for her No Waste Food Challenge hosted by Slice of Me, as these quinces could have easily seen the compost bin. Golden Quince Almond TartServes 8IngredientsMake your own pastry, this is the recipe that I used; or use ready made - I won't judge you. Preheat oven to gas mark 4/180oc. Bake blind and set aside.For the Quince Almond fillingPoached quinces in sweet syrup, drained and set aside2 medium eggs160g icing sugarJuice of 4 unwaxed lemons90g unsalted butter, melted70g ground almondsMethodEvenly layer the poached quince onto the pastry case.Whisk the eggs and icing sugar together until fluffy. Gently stir in the rest of the ingredients.Pour the lemony mixture onto the fruit in the pastry case and bake in the oven for 30 - 35 minutes or until filling has just set and is just beginning to turn golden on top. Allow to cool and serve at room temperature. Adapted from here.

8 comments:

I am glad you had a go at cooking quinces - we had them in the house as kids so they always give me a hit of nostalgia but I do love their fragrance whether raw in the house or cooked. The tart sounds lovely - have bookmarked it for quince season! Hope you might start to look forward to each quince season now :-)

Thanks Johanna. Yes, but I do wish I was more creative with them, still had to start somewhere. The only thing about the tart that I failed to mention it does have a zingy element to it too, which we loved. I will look forward to cooking with them again.

I think I will have to wait until next year now, but this does sound lovely. I found about 4 small fruit on my ornamental quince, and they have been perfuming the kitchen - not enough to make anything with them! Thanks for sharing. I will bookmark this. :)

Beautiful! I've never tried a fresh quince before. I've never seen them in our supermarkets, just quince syrup in our local wholefoods store. Thank you for linking up with the No Waste Food Challenge and Shop Local! :)

Hi Shaheen! It feels like ages since I read blogs! I haven't blogged for so long. I'm glad your blog is still going well. I hope you are well too. The quince in the second photo reminds me of the sun! It's the monsoon season here and it's mostly cloudy but today the sun decided to show itself for a bit so that's good.

Thanks Please don't worry about visiting, I have not been that attentive either, I went by your blog and noted your absence. I hope your well and life is keeping you busy i a good way. I've got the day off from work today, so catching up on house stuff. Take care.